It’s … The Encyclopedia of American loons! Our new and exciting series presenting a representative sample of American loons from A-Z.

Monday, February 14, 2011

#146: George Gilder

Writer, techno-utopian pseudo-intellectual, Republican activist, and co-founder of the Discovery Institute, Gilder rose to fame with his 1981 bestseller “Wealth and Poverty”, which made a practical and advanced a practical and moral case for capitalism. By that time he was already an established critic of feminism and government welfare policies (they erode the "sexual constitution" that socialize “men as fathers and providers”; apparently he also gave up evolution because it promoted feminism). He has published several books and currently publishes the newsletter the Gilder Technology Report.

He is, like several other ID creationist proponents, well known for his mangling of information theory, denying (and thereby showing blatant lack of understanding of the theory) that the Shannon information measure alone provides a good measure for biological information, because that measure ignores the actual function or meaning in the code. Gilder actually thinks (thus showing that he really has no clue whatsoever) that Shannon information theory actually shows that evolution cannot be explained by unintelligent physical causes. His bombastic screeds also reveals typical creationist persecution complexes and newspeak (the “Darwinist paradigm” will be replaced in a scientific revolution by a new, more comprehensive theory, where the “new, comprehensive theory” according to Gilder is … Paley’s ignorant 18th century view).

His persecution complex is splendidly illustrated here. Note also his new-age babble and hatred of education in this one.

A textbook example of a crackpot who fills his gibberish with jargon in a manner that reveals utter incompetence and Dunning-Kruger (in Gilder’s case the obvious example is his mangling of information theory). Unsurprisingly, he fails to comprehend the scientific method as well.